Womb To World: A Guided Developmental Journey

This eight-minute audio journey was originally created for psychotherapy training but may be of interest to anyone curious about the earliest stages of human experience.

Moving from conception through the gradual coming online of the senses, it traces the developing baby's growing awareness of sound, sensation, and homeostatic attunement with the mother, ending at the threshold of birth.
The narration is accompanied by ambient sound and carefully chosen sound effects — including the mother's heartbeat — designed to evoke the sensory world of the womb as much as describe it.
Not a meditation, but an experiential narrative — likely to be of interest to therapists, trainees, or anyone drawn to early developmental experience and the origins of embodied life.

Transcript

We're going to take a journey back. Imagining a time before anything existed. For you that is. Before your first breath. Before your first smile, Before you had a name. All of your senses came online and let you know that there was a world and that you existed in it. Let us go right back to where our journey begins. Conception. Whether your conception was an act of love. Or the result of a drunken encounter. Whether you were planned. Or a surprise. All of this will play a part in shaping the person that you will become. Just a few hours after conception. You are a single cell. That already contains all the genetic information needed to build a unique human being. Height. Eye colour. Even the susceptibility. To the diseases that you'll have in your retirement. Are all present now. Your genetic blueprint. Not only contains information from your parents. But from your grandparents and your great-grandparents. Trials and tribulations they experienced are encoded within your DNA. Events that happened hundreds of years ago. Or contribute to the person that you will become. Your journey begins. Not many survive the week-long journey. Through the fallopian tube to the uterus. In that time your cells have been dividing at an exponential rate. Fortunately for you. You successfully lacked. And nestle yourself into the walls of your mother's uterus. Hormonal changes will halt your mother's normal menstrual cycle from this point. And cause a whole host of physical changes. Three weeks after conception. You are now fully implanted. Ball of cells with your first nerve cells beginning to form. Through an epic act of co-construction. Build the placenta. That acts as a food source. Waste removal. And barrier against toxins throughout your time here. Five weeks after conception. You resemble more of a tadpole. To the human. But you're growing fast. Your circulatory system is beginning to form. And your tiny heart will start to beat this week. Seven weeks after conception. You now have little hands. And it will feed. Although they look more like paddles at this point. Nine weeks after conception. The size of a grape. You have developing lungs, Facial features, A jaw and you're even beginning to move. 12 weeks after conception. Fingers open and close as your reflexes kick in. Already the innate sucking reflex begins and your mouth opens and closes involuntarily. 15 weeks after conception. You become sensitive to light. Moving away from bright lights if they are shone into your home. 19 weeks after conception. The senses begin to come online. Smell. Vision. Touch. Taste. Hearing. Are all developing. You can hear your mother's voice and her heartbeat. Although the placenta protects you from hormonal changes to some degree. Extreme changes in your mother's mood can affect your development. 24 weeks after conception. You can now hear further sounds outside of the woods. Cultural and environmental sounds reaching, Although they sound muffled. 26 weeks after conception. Begin breathing amniotic fluid which helps develop your lungs. These breathing movements are good practice for your first breath of real air when you're born. The family dog is getting curious about that puppy. 27 weeks after conception. You sleep and wake up on a regular schedule and your brain is very active. Your lungs aren't fully formed but they could function outside the womb with medical help. 34 weeks after conception. If you were born now, You have a very high chance of survival with no long-term health complications. But that does depend on what country you're born in. 39 weeks after conception. Your physical development is complete. You're still busy putting on fat, Growing bigger. At any point now. Or amniotic sac. Good try. And you'll be pushed out of your home. The only environment you have ever known. Take your first breath. And open your eyes.